RWS 79 – Tackling Helicopter Aircrew Distractions with Kimberly Hutchings

Rotary Wing Show - Interviews from the Helicopter Industry

Kimberly Hutchings juggles flying helicopters, running a longline training school, family, being a physical trainer and speaking on safety for high risk industries.

Have you ever taken your eyes inside the cockpit to check a notification or had your preflight inspection interrupted by a phone call? Distractions of all kinds are increasingly a problem for aircrew and they are starting to show up in safety stats.

Picture for a moment – you are aircrew on a helicopter pre-1995 conducting a preflight on the ramp. For someone to distract you from your task they would have to come out onto the ramp and yell at you to get your attention. Chances are that unless something really important was up that your pre-flight would be uninterrupted.

In 2019 when you preflight you are likely to field calls from Mum asking why you haven’t called in a week, your wife/husband checking to see who is picking up the kids that afternoon and your boss wanting to know if you can work on Saturday. Then there are the social media post notifications, vibrations to let you know a new email has arrived and a recommendation from YouTube that PilotYellow has just posted a new video you might want to watch.

And that’s just on the ground. Bluetooth headsets, ipads and selfie taking passengers bring a new level of challenges to our ability to focus.

Distractions are enough of an aviation hazard now that the US NTSB include it as the first item on their Most Wanted List.

Kimberly Hutchings is a helicopter pilot, helicopter business CEO, speaker who holds a Bachelor of Psychology, a Masters of aeronautical science specialising in Human Factors and Safety systems and a Masters of Management w/ Organizational Behaviour and Leadership.

Kimberly regularly speaks to groups and companies around the dangers of loss of focus, distractions, emotional intelligence and mindfulness.

In this episode we look at what the problem is, how helicopters compare to other forms of transport and strategies to prevent our attention being pulled away from critical tasks.

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Links from this week’s episode:
Support the podcast on Patreon

Volomission – Vertical Reference and Longline Training.

Kimberly Hutchings on LinkedIn.

NTSB Most Wanted List – more info on Distractions and the other top US aviation safety concerns.

Training at the Volomission ranch in Texas. Kimberly and her husband Andre run a dedicated external load and vertical reference school.

Helicopters are more like cars than aeroplanes when it comes to distractions from passengers.

Have a comment or feedback about Episode 79? Maybe you have some great tips of your own that others can benefit from. Be part of the conversation by leaving a comment below.

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